Various products, including food products and spices, are typically sold in a wide variety of retail package sizes and configurations, including cardboard boxes, plastic and paper bags, and bottles of varied sizes, shapes, and capacities. And, even when similar products from different manufacturers or brands have substantially the same amount of product in a package, for example one pound of a particular product, those different manufacturers' products may each be marketed in retail packaging that is of a different shape or configuration. Some of the differences in package configurations may be attributable to the manufacturers trying to differentiate their product offerings from other competing brands, or to deliver a particular amount of product at a particular price point to the end consumer, to which package configuration contributes significantly.
Consumers, including residential and industrial users, typically store products sold in the variety of package sizes and configurations in or on shelves, counters, and pantries. However, due to the variety of package sizes and configurations, storing products in their retail packaging is often an inefficient use of counter and/or shelf space.
And while many containers are available to enable a more efficient, organized, and appealing storage of these items, some key needs of consumers remain unmet by the presently available storage container solutions. Specifically, at least three key problems remain. First, when a consumer removes product—e.g., rice, flour, pasta, or the like, from its retail package, and decants said product into a storage container, it is often desirable to retain much of the information contained on or in the original retail packaging, e.g., brand, ingredient, nutritional information and/or cooking instructions. It is common for consumers to remove this information from the original retail packaging by cutting it from the label, bag, or box, and placing these label excerpts inside the container with the food items or, alternatively, taping the information to the outside of the container, thereby relegating the consumer to digging through the food items or un-taping the label excerpts to retrieve the labeling information.
Second, when the volume of product inside a particular container gets low, and it becomes necessary to refill the container, it also becomes necessary to procure and store a “back-up” box or bag of the food item. However, as it is oftentimes undesirable to comingle the new product with the old, a user is required to store the new product until the container is completely empty, only then refilling the container with the new product. This necessitates the storing of redundant containers of the same product—the decanted older product in the nearly empty storage container and the unopened container of new replacement product, thus consuming additional space in often already-over-crowded pantries and cabinets.
Third, it is often desirable to store prepared foods under refrigeration to maintain freshness and food safety until the stored food is to be consumed. But, sometimes the prepared foods are still warm from preparation or service, or at room-temperature, and require the ambient cold from the refrigerated air to cool them down. However, stacking containers of still-warm food prevents airflow between containers.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide container systems and methods that address these and other problems. Other advantages and features will become apparent upon reading the following disclosure.